Unguarded
by ryoushi-x
Summary: What will Bishop find when he slips into her room at night?


The story described a singular scene between the main character and Bishop without getting too involved in where in the plotline they are. I've left the description of the race and class of the main character vague and I don't even give her name. I wanted to allow every reader to be able to put _their_ main character (or themselves) in as the protagonist.

It is the Bishop companion piece to Casavir's Underneath, also published here, exploring similar themes.

Please note that the material you are about to read is definitely rated as **Mature/Restricted** for scenes of violence, sexuality, and nudity. You should be 18 years old or older before continuing on as adult themes are explored. Please do NOT continue if any of these makes you uncomfortable. There are graphic and descriptive scenes in this narrative. 

Unguarded

By Ryoushi © 2007

The days and the nights all tumbled into each other now, punctuated only by quick visits to the Keep. Otherwise, it was all sky and trees and fields and dirt roads, camping well past sun down and breaking camp as the last of the stars were twinkling out of existence. They were back at the Keep for a few days to replenish supplies, rest and check on the troops before heading out. Where? She did not know. Every rising sun brought with it new twists, turns and challenges, Lathander be damned.

She was lying in bed, a sweet luxurious comfort that made every effort to come back to the Keep – to home – worthwhile. She watched the moonlight poured its silvery fluid through the windows, causing the stone walls of her chamber to alternate between a pale blue and the ebony of shadows. What she valued most about sleeping in her own bed in her own chambers was knowing that she would be safe – not having to worry about waking up to watch the camp, not having to worry about some beast or creature – knowing that guards were scattered throughout the Courtyard and Keep and nothing would be able to penetrate the walls without _somebody_ noticing.

The warmth of the furs covering her bed was soothing and she could not help but smile as sleep lulled her down into a peaceful blackness…

In the blackness a lone figured watched. He watched her breasts rise and fall rhythmically and felt a primal stirring. So…innocent. So…unguarded. His soft footfalls brought him to the edge of her bed. He was careful to not let his shadow fall across her quiet face. He cautiously slid the blanket off her sleeping form, slowly revealing her long and naked legs beneath the sleeping gown that was bunched up around her thighs. If only he could just reach out and touch the skin – it must be as soft and giving as it looked…

She sensed the presence even before she fully awoke and opened her eyes and saw him. She felt the movement of air in her chambers, and as she sat bolt-upright and reached for her blade, his hand was faster and darted out, grabbing her wrist. Her eyes shot upwards following the arm, to see who could have reflexes faster than her, and was stunned to see Bishop standing at her bed. He was staring down at her, his eyes calculating, his lips tight.

"Bish-" was all she could manage before his other hand reached out and clamped her solidly across the mouth. She looked up at him, alarmed, and every muscle in her body tensed. Malin had said something about not trusting him. Casavir had warned her about him. Even her own instincts had twitched uncomfortably whenever Bishop was too near – or too far. Now it appeared that they were right and she had been too foolish to listen…

But he just held her there, pressed against the wooden headboard of her bed. His gold-flecked brown eyes bore into hers, searching yet not moving. Like a lion, he held her still with his eyes, the sinuous muscles of his arms shifting imperceptibly. She wanted to look around the room, to see what was within reach to grab and use as a weapon but she did not dare pull her eyes from his. Her heart was beating in her chest like a caged bird and she was certain he could see it right through her sleeping gown.

Without relaxing his hold on her, he leaned in and whispered in her ear half-mockingly, "You're very pretty when you sleep, _Knight-Captain_. Really, if I had known how easy it would be to sneak into your room at night, I would have done so earlier." His eyes were glowing with a strange light. She could feel the heat of his breath on her ear as he spoke and smell the strangely intoxicating scent of leather, wind and smoke. He held his body so close to hers that as she shivered in the cool night, she could feel the studs of his armor, the hilt of the blade at his side…

_His sword_!

Her mind snapped from her reverie and she remember that her _other_ hand was still free. Without thinking, she grabbed frantically at his sword. The ranger's eyes widened in surprise and it seemed at though he had forgotten as well. He let go of her mouth and went to grab at her other arm but that motion was enough to allow her to wriggle free from his grasp. She tumbled from the bed gracelessly, her sleeping gown tripping her to the floor.

There was no way she could fight him like this – no weapons, no armors, no spells, no clothes. But if she could just get to the door…alert the guards…

She had barely taken two steps when she felt his looming presence behind her. Her back stiffened, waiting for the icy searing of a blade or the quick hot piercing of an arrow. _My gods, to die in my own room like this…_

But the killing blow never came. Instead, she felt his arms wrap completely around her waist and in one fluid motion, he swung her back to the bed and threw her roughly and unceremoniously onto the blankets of furs. In the same motion, he followed suit and landed savagely on top of her, pinning her legs with his and her arms with his calloused hands. "Are you stupid, woman? Do you want to get the entire Keep down on our heads? Don't say a word and maybe I'll be nicer to you."

Her eyes widened as she looked at him but she could not help but whisper questioningly, "Bishop?" She did not know what she meant to ask him – what he was doing? Why he was there? What was the meaning of all this? His face was irritated but at hearing his name she saw a flicker move across his eyes and mouth like the breeze through the trees. He leaned in again, pressing his chest to hers and she felt the bed sink beneath them. "Pretty _Knight-Captain_," he said, letting the title bestowed upon her roll off his tongue disdainfully. His eyes were roaming across her face almost absent-mindedly, but she knew a man like Bishop did everything with a purpose. He smiled at her, his lips curling up, tauntingly, almost cruelly. "You know what I want. And I know what you want, even if you don't know it yet or continue to deny it. We could stay here like this all night and play our little mind games with each other but we don't have time, and there are other things I'd much rather do."

With that, he forced his lips to hers.

With this unfamiliar intimate touch she suddenly felt her whole body tightened like the strings on the bows he was so accustomed to using. She could feel the warmth of his skin on hers, the coarseness of the hairs on his jawline; mixed with the scent of leather, wind and smoke was now sweat and the musky heady scent of a _man_. He still had her pinned to the bed as if he were afraid she'd run but now he had stretched out and had the fullness of his delicious weight pressing down the entire length of her body. She couldn't help it; the weeks of traveling together, seeing his silent form constantly eyeing her from the edge of camp, his incessant verbal barbs, his occasionally not-so-accidental touches had brought her pent up frustrations to this maddening point and she felt her back arching up against her will and pressing back against his body. This seemed to reassure him and he hungrily slipped his tongue inside her mouth. His fingers loosened their grip on her wrists and slid up to intertwine gently with hers. Bishop still held her to the soft bed but she felt a change – no longer was he afraid she'd escape – he was holding her because wanted her desperately close, closer.

She could feel his armor chafing against her near naked skin and suddenly the imposed distance between _his_ naked skin and hers felt like a mile if it was an inch. Bishop appeared to be thinking the same and his hands started tugging impatiently at her sleeping gown. But she would do things _her_ way. He might have had the element of surprise, but now she wanted control. She wanted him unclothed first, vulnerable to her first – Bishop, for all his raw masculine charm, was still Bishop with his keen, unpredictable edge. She swatted his fingers away and he bristled, his liquid brown eyes flashing dangerously in the dim light. "Don't tease me, _my Lady_," he growled lowly, the words resonating in his chest.

She snapped at him, "You _will _indulge me, _ranger_, if you know what's good for you." Her sudden aggressive and haughty tone seemed to have taken him aback and he looked at her cautiously but arrogantly, "I think I know exactly what's good for me." He bit her sharply on her lower lip and was pleased to hear her gasp in pain and pleasure. "Don't you think I've been indulging you all these weeks, running on some stupid errand or another? Don't you think I could experience some of your famed kindness and generosityas a bit of a reward? Or do you only give that to our holy and dutiful paladin?"

She scowled at him from below and Bishop smiled condescendingly. If only she knew how good she looked, angry and trapped by him, beneath him. Her hair was arranged wildly about her head, like a feral halo. "You know," he pretended to muse thoughtfully, "I would probably take orders more kindly if you could give them dressed like this." His fingers yanked her sleeping gown up another inch exposing more of her skin. Only a little more to go…

Her eyes never left his face but her fingers trailed up to his sides. His hands stopped hers when he felt her going towards his belt with his sword, "I thought we were past this?" he said, raising his eyebrows. She smiled disarmingly, "We are, Bishop, so now you have to trust me if you want some of my 'famed kindness and generosity.'" Her fingers continued to his belt buckle and nimbly she undid the belt and let the sword and scabbard clatter to the stone floor. "Besides," she whispered, "I'm not interested in that sword tonight."

He felt her fingers slide along the waistline of his breeches – so close, yet so achingly far – and he let a longing whimper slip from his lips, burying his face in her neck and pushing his hips into her. She grabbed his waist and pulled him to her, pushing her hips into his but she made no move to loosen his trousers.

Bishop pressed his mouth hungrily to the smooth skin of her neck, nipping gently at the flesh, hoping his urgency would goad her into working faster at removing these bulky trappings of civilization – he wanted to feel his nakedness against hers, to strip both of them of the falsities of society and to have her as a real, animalistic woman. He could smell the exotic scent of perfumes wafting up from the heat of her skin. _A warrior who wore perfumes…_ He inhaled deeply, recognizing the scent of the white abbis blossom, and his mind drifted back to the first battle they had fought together. She had looked so powerful, standing in the mud, covered in dirt and blood, holding her blade confidently in her hand, chest heaving from exertion and surrounded by fallen enemies, that it was all he could do not to strip her down and have her ferociously right there and then among the broken weapons and trampled grass. She had looked up into his eyes when she noticed him staring, her face unreadable with the flurry of emotions passing through it in the aftermath of battle. Her lips had parted as her face suddenly softened with understanding, but then she seemed to have changed her mind and shifting her weight to her other foot, had said simply and crisply, "Are you hurt?" He had merely grunted and brushed his way past her, and that was when he had first smelled that provocative perfume... _No – he was far worse than hurt…_

He cupped her face roughly while he kissed her mouth, feeling her tongue plunge inside commandingly. His mouth worked against hers with an untamed desperate desire. Her fingers quivered slightly as she began undoing the clasps that held Bishop in his leather armor and as she struggled to pull the armor off of him, her eyes caught his. He was staring at her with an unmasked carnal wanting and she felt an electrical tingle move up her spine. He was clothed only now in a simple green tunic and his brown pants, torn from the multiple battles they had seen. She could feel his chest heaving against her with his ragged but controlled breaths. He was trembling in anticipating, waiting for her to make the next move. _Indulging her._

She pushed him up to a sitting position and practically ripped the tunic from his torso. His body was taut, tight, like a finely balanced weapon, marked with scars and burns. His shoulders were straight and strong and she used them to pull herself up to look at him face to face. There was a moment of stillness, of silence, as they both considered one another in the dark. _Oh Bishop, _she thought, though she didn't dare speak his name aloud for fear of breaking whatever silent spell held them in the night. _Bishop Bishop Bishop Bishop_, the voice in her head chanted, savoring the way his name sounded in her mind. Impulsively, even lovingly, she reached out and tousled his chestnut hair. He seemed surprised at her gentle touch and she watched, for an instance, as the hard lines of his expression softened, the guarded weariness drained from his eyes and all the tension and harshness left the angles of his face. She hadn't noticed before how his dark lashes rimmed in eyes, emphasizing the amber of his iris. In that moment, she saw not the cool, aloof tracker, grizzled and harden from years of running, but the soft boy of yesteryears and the man he could have been if Fate had not dealt him his tragic hand.

The unfairness of it suddenly left her angry and hurt for the both of them. It wasn't their fault that they were both trapped in these circumstances, her as the Shard-Bearer, the _Kalach-cha_, and him as the haunted untrustworthy ranger. In any other lifetime, things could have been normal – they could have been normal… But there was no one for her to take her sudden anger out on except for him. She pushed him back violently onto the bed and he fell back easily, willingly. Her hands tugged off his boots, and then worked feverishly to undo the lacing that held his breeches on. She could see the hard bulge in his pants, and as the breeches came off and crumpled to the floor, she turned to him and unabashedly let her eyes and fingers trail from his feet, up his legs. She caressed his inner thigh, making small circles but it was her own skin that prickled at feeling how intimately she was touching him. She threw her right leg over him and straddled his midsection, acutely aware of the heat emanating from him between her legs, separated only by a thin, inadequate sleeping gown.

Bishop stared up at her and licked his lips, barely keeping the snide smirk off his lips. This was turning out better than he had ever expected or planned. He could see the shape of her breasts against the fabric of her gown, the nipples pert and upturned because of the cold...or because of him. Without asking, he pulled the gown over her head and tossed it into the pile next to her bed. Suddenly freed from the last vestige of clothing and civility, the last of her inhibition seemed to fall away into the pile of clothing and armor along with her gown. Bishop pulled her down on top of him and wrapped his arms around her waist once again, as his legs wove their way around hers. He squeezed his limbs so that her body was pressed tightly to his, every space becoming flesh and watched her throw her head back, eyes shut, lips parted, her hair tumbling around her shoulders. His teeth razed the white skin of her exposed throat and he squeezed her harder, grabbing at whatever piece of her he could between his fingers and pinching it mercilessly. He could feel her nails digging into his upper arms every time he pressed her harder into him and sensed the quickening of her breath. He felt her lips kiss his collarbone and work their way down his chest to his brownish-pink nipples. He couldn't fight back a groan as he felt her tongue slip out and caress them sensually. He felt the throbbing between his legs increase ferverently…

He growled suddenly, impatiently, and rolled over in the bed, pinning her once again beneath him. This time he felt her soft body give beneath him and instinctually he used his legs to part hers. He looked down into her eyes, with its dark wide pupils, and she met his squarely, glistening in the dark, and she made no movement to stop him. He needed no further encouragement and the predator finally took his prey.

With the first hard thrust, he felt her entire body lifting and arching against him, nearly bucking him off her lithe body with a strength that surprised him. He felt the flesh beneath him resist slightly then give way; he was then surrounded by her soft warmth. Her arms were wrapped around his shoulders and her hands gripped his brown hair, pulling his face to hers. She kissed him hurriedly, without reserve, and he found himself responding in kind. His lips moved to her ear then down to where the delicate line of her neck met her shoulders and he took her skin between his teeth, sucking hard and tasting her sweetness. There would be a welt there tomorrow, he knew it, and relished the thought of leaving his indelible mark on her flawless skin. Maybe he would point it out to the paladin tomorrow…He pushed into her deeper, impaling her, and heard her breathed in his ear, "_Bishop…._"

She clung to the back of his neck, bracing herself against the onslaught of his thrusts. He seemed utterly lost in his passion, his eyes never leaving her body – all the weeks of tension between the two of them disappearing with each rocking motion of his hips. His skin was hot against hers and she could feel his sweat as he selfishly heaved into her. He was so wild and untamed and unpredictable – worse than any kind of animal simply because he was Bishop. Her head was getting light as his fingers and mouth found their way across her body. She wanted to stop him, stop him before he pushed her over the edge of pleasure into the abyss which would leave her more naked and open than she was now. She could feel the burning knot of pressure building in her middle, keening towards a frenzied pitch. She opened her mouth to say something, to tell him to slow or stop but all that came out was shuddering moan. That seemed to renew his vigour and plunged into her harder and deeper – and she knew she was lost to him. She was forced let go of all thought and consideration of who or what Bishop was. Ranger, tracker, Luskan, victim, betrayer, tender, violent – a bundle of strange contradictions but it did not matter. It did not matter as his final thrust into her burst the bubbling tension in her and she felt the exploding heat shoot through every muscle in her body. "Bishop!" she cried aloud, to the man - the ranger, tracker, Luskan, victim, betrayer, all of him - who was with her, as she trembled violently against him. She heard him say her name between broken gasps of breath and she felt his body, every muscle that was against her, tighten as he pushed wholly into her one last time…

When she awoke, he was gone, the bed still giving off the lingering heat of where he had slept beside her. She put her hand where his body had been and noticed a small white flower on her pillow. She smiled; it was an abbis flower. So he had noticed and he knew. A quiet shift in the air of the room and she realized she had been wrong – he was not gone, he had never left and as she looked up, she saw him standing silently at the edge of the shadows, where he had been watching her sleep…guarding her…


End file.
